Saturday, September 12, 2009

i'm going off the rails on a crazy train

For some weird reason, I'm attracted to train graffiti. Who knows? Maybe I was a wildly famous artist in a previous lifetime. Or perhaps someone who committed misdemeanor crimes? Ok, more than likely someone who huffed paint and lived in railroad cars with other hobos.

Anywho.

I realized quickly there are three rules to train graffiti.

First of all, you MUST NOT write so that it can be read by others!!!

Picture number one is a blatant example of how NOT to do train graffiti. Mike, you should be ashamed of yourself for having such a lack of artistic bent that all you could come up with was scribbling your name on the side of a train car. Jebus. You probably still color on the walls at home.

[CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE]

The second rule of thumb for train graffiti is that you must write in big exaggerated roundy (or sharpy) letters that can't be deciphered by anyone.

The final rule states the letters must be jumbled all up on top of each other and squeezed together like po' folks in a trailer.

Like this....

And this...

Annnnnd this...

And this brings me to the single best piece of train graffiti I've ever seen. I don't know who the author is, hell, I don't even know what it says, but I recognize a big pink glazed donut when I see one. Oh yeah, and Homer. And why the HELL does my camera insist on dating everything 1971?!

Yep, there are scribbles, slurs, occult-signs, and then there are the "Homer Simpson"-style---a DAMNED-good job! Always added a bit of a "flair" to an otherwise boring job, when we'd do field repairs on the railyard sidings!

I still to this day wonder if the artist's were REAL ghetto-folk, or just a professional artist lookin' for a "change of pace" from their drawing-boards???

Railyard sidings, especially in the larger cities. Some cars sit there for days, or weeks, at a time, either waiting for shipping assignment or repairs. And any yard security can only cover so much area at any given time, especially in the ghetto-section where most of these yards are located.